the greatest dilemma

Lestat wrote: There is this constant myth perpetuating all across the amateur tt community, whereby one can compensate the lack of speed in your gear with good strokes, timing, practice etc etc. Folks, stop parroting back this nonsense and do your own homework for a change.

This dilemma has been following most of us for our all TT carrier. I am now 51 and I remember, when I was 13 and I got my first Hans Alser stiga blades with 2 Yasaka Mark V, my coach told me it was way too fast and I should stick to my kenny style with sriver 1.5.

There is a perennial myth propagating in the amateur TT world that one can compensate the lack of skill with faster equipment.

DDreamer wrote: Lestat wrote: There is this constant myth perpetuating all across the amateur tt community, whereby one can compensate the lack of speed in your gear with good strokes, timing, practice etc etc. Folks, stop parroting back this nonsense and do your own homework for a change. This is a myth? I did some homework: what speed blade does this guy use?

Right, I didn't name any names but it's funny to see some of you coming out of the woodwork with knee-jerk reactions. My guess is, if your rating were to be posted against your comments, a pattern would emerge soon. I know this is a social forum but time to call the BS. For some people here, the total sum of their knowledge is nothing more than the total sum of the posts they've been reading. And you wonder how these myths are propagating…

Edited by Lestat - 02/22/2014 at 8:41am

Lestat wrote: Right, I didn't name any names but it's funny to see some of you coming out of the woodwork with knee-jerk reactions. <span style="line-height: 1.4;">My guess is, if your rating were to be posted against your comments, a pattern would emerge soon. I know this is a social forum but time to call the BS. For some people here, the total sum of their knowledge is </span>nothing more than the total sum of the posts they've been reading. And you wonder how these myths are propagating… More to the point, what I'm saying is there is a generally accepted notion amongst the semi-pros and upwards that you can't draw speed out of a slow setup. At least not without sacrificing other aspects of the game. You can't challenge this statement with the odd exception, and I certainly didn't say you can compensate for lack of skill with speed. That's just misinterpretation, not intentional I hope. @ddreamer <span style="line-height: 1.4;">Have you personally played with his setup? If not, how do you really know how fast or slow it is?</span> I'm gonna move on now, before we turn this into a brawl.

I've used ALL/ALL+ blades since the 70s and have never had a problem with power. I'm getting a bit old now but an ex-local A grade player who moved to NYC tells me I was around US2450 when he used to play me. I'm happy post clips of me playing to back up what I'm saying. Lestat I'm sure you will do the same. Here at least is proof that I have actually played with an ALL blade.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwv72ntNlO4

Here is a clip of me looping with an ALL+ ish blade:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aApIGgRh_QM

The other thing to consider is that in sub-elite TT (which I am confident includes puppy) it's not like you have to hit hard enough to hit through Samsonov. At such levels (for arguments sake, let us say loosely 2200 and below) it is rare that players don't win because they can't hit hard enough. Rather they usually lose because they can't get the ball on the table enough. And of those that can't hit powerfully it is invariably due to dodgy technique and as such their power issues would not be solved with faster equipment. In 40 years of playing I can't ever remember thinking a player couldn't hit fast enough because their equipment was too slow.

I'm looking forward to seeing a clip of Lestat.

Edited by DDreamer - 02/22/2014 at 5:06pm

I am not against slow blades at all.
they make your life much much easier in some shots.
these are serve, pushing, looping, chopping.

the dark side of slow setups is that when playing passive shots the ball tends to stay pretty short on the other side with poor speed.
this helps your opponent get closer to the table which makes it easier for his following attacks to be more deadly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
also regarding this idea that you see a lot of high players use slow setups I would like to propose a new theory which goes:
***the higher your ranking, the slower thou setup shall be***

this is because when you have high skills most of your shots will be loops or counterloops or counterdrives.
as I said above these are better using slow setups.
but you don't get to this level by playing a couple of times a week in the hood club.
you get to this level by training like an athlete.
how many chinese national players have you seen using off+ blades?
zero.
because for their game (looping, counter looping, aggressive hitting, etc) it's better to have slow setup.
but I haven't seen any sub US2600 player play like the guys in the chinese team.

intermediate amateur players could benefit from super fast setup because
1- their shots will be longer and opponent won't win the table so easily.
2- the skills they gain will be much better than the skills of any guy who uses off-.
then when he decides to go to off- he will find himself better than all the guys who used off- for ages.

I remember reading here of a guy who gave schlager carbon to starting players.
I propose giving this coach a medal.


Edited by puppy412 - 02/22/2014 at 12:02pm

Great theories... The first questions should always be how do you actually win points and how do you want to win points. Theories about the advantages and disadvantages of a blade speed or rubber are useless without serious answers to these questions.

Lestat wrote: There is this constant myth perpetuating all across the amateur tt community, whereby one can compensate the lack of speed in your gear with good strokes, timing, practice etc etc. Folks, stop parroting back this nonsense and do your own homework for a change.

There is more than one way to skin a cat.  But for a lot of players, it is possible for setups to be too slow and it is possible for them to be too fast.  Slower equipment requires that you basically swing harder on any offensive shot and that works fine, but it also means that any defects in footwork or balance are magnified.  Faster equipment can help with that issue but then the margin for error is reduced in other ways, especially on any shots that require touch (serve, service return, short push, etc.).  Within the extremes there is a wide range of blade/rubber combinations that are reasonable, as with Next Level's last comment.  Different plays vary in age, mobility, distance from table, intrinsic soundness of strokes, how high they take the ball, favored tactics, so many things.  A player can really hurt himself by using some setup far from optimum, but making constant small changes  that mainly entail changing from one thing to another in the same class really doesn't help either since you never get accustomed to anything.   

puppy412 wrote: GMan4911 wrote: puppy412 wrote: I'm not a beginner, been playing somewhere from 5 to 10 years. that's why I say doing a couple of drills per week won't do it for me. What you need is a coach who can analyze your weaknesses and help you eliminate them.  Or, record yourself playing and ask for advice on the forums.  Doing drills is just part of the equation.   If you know what your weaknesses are, then just do drills that focus on eliminating them. ok I see 99% of members focus on the "do drills" thing. let's say I agree I will do huge amount of drills. I need to do these drills with a paddle. so we go back to the original question which started the thread. do I choose amultart which is great for everything but pushing and serving? or do I choose off- which is great for serving and pushing but mediocre for everything else?

just to be clear for all reading this, I never had power problems with my attack.
but it's complete fantasy to think that you'll attack shot after shot after shot.
reality is more like a random mixture of:

-push
-block
-pass ball how you can
-loop

just to give you an example, look at gao ning, playing now vs xu xin.
the guy doesn't attack every shot, he'll loop every now and then but also blocks a lot from a good distance to table.
imagine him trying to do this with an off- with untuned rubber.
ball would go short, xu xin comes closer to table, less chance to block next shot by gao ning (xu xin closer = less time to react to his loops)


Edited by puppy412 - 02/22/2014 at 2:26pm

puppy412 wrote: I am not against slow blades at all. they make your life much much easier in some shots. these are serve, pushing, looping, chopping. the dark side of slow setups is that when playing passive shots the ball tends to stay pretty short on the other side with poor speed. this helps your opponent get closer to the table which makes it easier for his following attacks to be more deadly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ also regarding this idea that you see a lot of high players use slow setups I would like to propose a new theory which goes: ***the higher your ranking, the slower thou setup shall be*** this is because when you have high skills most of your shots will be loops or counterloops or counterdrives. as I said above these are better using slow setups. but you don't get to this level by playing a couple of times a week in the hood club. you get to this level by training like an athlete. how many chinese national players have you seen using off+ blades? zero. because for their game (looping, counter looping, aggressive hitting, etc) it's better to have slow setup. but I haven't seen any sub US2600 player play like the guys in the chinese team. intermediate amateur players could benefit from super fast setup because 1- their shots will be longer and opponent won't win the table so easily. 2- the skills they gain will be much better than the skills of any guy who uses off-. then when he decides to go to off- he will find himself better than all the guys who used off- for ages. I remember reading here of a guy who gave schlager carbon to starting players. I propose giving this coach a medal.

actually sorry for what I said above, I was just wrong.
truth is the better you become, the faster you will want your paddle to be.
just look at these guys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67M-muLdTAg
they could never play slow equipment.

I guess this drives me to one conclusion:
I'm getting better.

this is why I see more advantages in amultart than in off-


Edited by puppy412 - 02/22/2014 at 2:53pm

I really never felt amultart had poor control in looping or blocking.
actually when I realized i could win many points just by standing there and blocking whatever came to me I was using amultart.
the difference is felt more in touch shots, pushing, serving, all that.
but in open game I'd say it's pretty even with off-
from the players I played personally I've seen all.
some using off- some using off+
the general tendency is that people start with say primorac or similar in terms of speed and then move up.
some will go all the way to gergely and similar.
some others will just stop in alc style blades.
but I haven't seen many players go from off+ to off- or all+
the ones I have were mostly ejs influenced by mytt

I have the theory that top pros use only off blades because they boost.
if they were not boosting they would all use off+ blades.




Edited by puppy412 - 02/22/2014 at 3:46pm